plugger66 wrote:What is good? Saad had a very good year for a first year player but if it was his 7th year I reckon he would be rated outside our top10 so he is in the bottom half of our regular list. My point is i doubt Lee or Hickey will get inside our top 10 this year and IMO if you're not inside the top 10 you arent improving the side enough for the side to actually get up the ladder.
It seems we have a different idea on what is a good player that will improve the team.
The post of yours that I responded to, as you can see above (and it was very specific and I was only responding to one line of your post) said "People thinking Hickey, Lee and TDL are going to be good players in their first year are in fantasy land."
So now you're saying that you consider "good" to be top 10. OK, but who suggested that the likes of Hickey, Lee or TDL were likely to be "top 10" next year? Who are these that you're referring to that have suggested that and are therefore in "fantasy land"? I sure as hell haven't- I'm pretty sure I was suggesting that they could have the same sort of impact as Saad, Milera and Wilkes did this year, hence mentioning them and I don't expect any of them to be "top 10" next year (although Lee could if he really pulled out a big one, but I'm not necessarily expecting that in his first year) and I haven't seen anyone else suggest that they are going to be top ten, either.
I brought up Saad specifically because I remember distinctly that I and possibly others were suggesting this time last year that we thought Saad would be in our best 22 this year and that you were pretty much arguing that he wouldn't be and by stating what you did above (the "fantasy land" comment), after I had suggested that I thought Lee and maybe one or two others could have a similar impact to Saad and co this year, it seemed like you were making the same argument you were last year and that you hadn't learned anything from what Saad was able to do in his first year in the AFL this year.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Milera this time last year, nor Beau and I'm very sure you wouldn't have been expecting much from them, based on your views on Saad at the time and what you said about Lee, Hickey and TDL in your "fantasy land" comment, but I distinctly remembered what you had been arguing about Saad, so that is why I brought it up, to see if you had learned from what he was able to do this year, which you were suggesting this time last year he wouldn't, from memory.
As for suggesting that Saad, for instance, didn't improve the team this year, I don't agree with that at all. He (and Milera) definitely gave us something that we had been lacking in recent times, in some real speed and extra electricity and polish/class in our forward line, not to mention some extra forward pressure, on top of their 3 goals a game. The fact that we didn't move up the ladder as a result was a lot more to do with those that didn't have great years for us, or had more injuries, IMO, rather than them not improving our side at all.
I would suggest with great confidence that if they had not been on our list this year we would have finished lower down the ladder than we did, so to me that means that they added to/improved the team, from where we
would have been without them. We may have finished lower than we did the previous year (although that had a lot to do with losing almost all our close ones this year, compared to last, IMO) but we would have finished lower than 9th still, if we hadn't had them this year, IMO, so in my book that certainly means they improved us and I expect it will be the same sort of situation with Lee and co. next year.
The big question for me will be will others improve enough for us to actually move up the ladder, rather than just not slide as much as we otherwise would?
As I said in another post, sure we have lost Goddard, who came 4th in our B&F, but the mere fact that he came 4th in the B&F, despite being well short of his brilliant best, suggests that there were plenty of others who dropped off this year, due to form, or injuries cutting their games, so as far as I'm concerned, a lot of our fate depends on those who had down years for whatever reason this year giving us more next year, to cover for the loss of BJ and Gram and hopefully more than cover for them, to help send us back up the ladder. I think Ray being given more games alone could help to cover for most of what Gram gave us this year, for starters. Remember, we're not replacing the Gram and Goddard of two years ago, we did that two years ago (with the Gram and Goddard that we've had since then, who weren't as good).
I went through the whole 22 in a post above and outlined whether I thought each of them would be likely to improve, stay the same, or drop back next year, all things being equal (ie. that they don't have bad injuries, which are hard to predict as we sit here) and I found a heap that have plenty of room for improvement in them on what they gave us this year and the only new one I had in there was Lee, as Sub, for R1.
I'm really expecting pretty big things (at least compared to their previous output) from the likes of McEvoy, Siposs and Steven next year, for starters and I'm also expecting Rhys to build on what he did this year and hope that someone like Ledger will be ready to finally make a solid impact in the middle, to give us another option there and help with the clearances, which he seems to do so well, on top of what I'm confident that we'll get from the likes of Lee.
I'm also hoping that Fisher will be able to play a fuller season and that we'll find someone else that does an adequate job for FB, to free Sam up to get back to what he does so well across HB, which we missed badly for much of this year. Then there's Gwilt, who will hopefully get back closer to his best, now that he's had a full year back from his reco and who knows how Roo will go this year if his knee really is greatly improved from those treatments he had on it this year? I mean if he continues to improve at the rate he was by the end of his season this year and plays a full season next year, then that could help us move back up a couple of spots or more on its own, especially if he has greater support, from the likes of a fitter and stronger Wilkes, Stanley, Lee, or Kosi. Then there's Gilbert who has lots of improvement in him to get back to his best, etc.
As I said in another post, if the older ones all start to realise that their time together is rapidly coming to a close, that could also put a big rocket up them and make them come out all guns blazing next year and if that happens, who knows how far we could go? I think that lacking a bit this year made the difference between winning and losing a lot of our close games and if we'd won 4 of those 6 very close ones we lost, we would have finished top 4, so I see no reason why we can't bridge that gap next year if a lot of these things I've mentioned come together (not to mention the game plan of course, that has plenty of room for improvement, especially if we got our over-attacking out of our system this year and get back to more of a balanced approach next year, with more focus on defence).
So I can see a heap of reasons why we could easily improve significantly next year, which is why I don't think it is out of the question at all for us to finish as high as top 4, but on the other hand, as I've said in recent days, I am very well aware of how easily it could also go the other way, especially if we were to get bad injuries.
This year we had pretty bad injuries to the areas we had the least cover for (ruck and FB/CHB) and it cost us, but we had pretty good experienced depth in the likes of Peake, Polo, Raph and then Blake and CJ (later in the year, when they were playing VFL) in case we had injuries in other areas, whereas next year I think we have better depth for sure in the ruck and key positions, but I don't see a lot of experienced depth in other areas, so if we were to get really bad injuries in those areas I think we could be in a bit of trouble. Also I feel that if we do start losing games then Roo and co. might start to really lose a bit of that fire and then we would really be in trouble.
YOU GET WHAT YOU SETTLE FOR.